A man is charged with murder. He is Pigoil, the aging stage manager at Chansonia, a music hall in a Paris faubourg. His confession is a long flashback to New Year's Eve, 1935, when he ...
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Storyline

A man is charged with murder. He is Pigoil, the aging stage manager at Chansonia, a music hall in a Paris faubourg. His confession is a long flashback to New Year's Eve, 1935, when he discovers his wife is unfaithful and Galapiat, the local mobster, closes the music hall. Over the next few months, Pigoil loses custody of his beloved son, Jo-Jo, and must find work. Pigoil and his pals take over the Chansonia as a co-op; Galapiat is momentarily benign. Their star is the young Douce, a girl from near Lille for whom Galapiat lusts. She in turn falls in love with Milou, a local Red. There are ups and downs, but mostly ups - but what about Jo-Jo and what about the murder? Written by
<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Technical Specs

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Did You Know?

Trivia

The old man, Monsieur TSF, who stays in his apartment is named after the original French name for radio: "Telediffusion Sans Fil", which means "Wireless Broadcasting" in French, abbreviated "TSF". See more »

Goofs

When Jacky accidentally turns on the radio while Pigoil is talking to his wife and her new lover, the radio is very loud immediately after Jacky flips the switch. On this type of old tube amplified radio, it would take several seconds for the tubes to heat up and amplify any signal, and the volume would go up very slowly. See more »

Go to the IMDb.com Search-Window and enter the title: "Paris 36" and what do you get?...VOILA! "Faubourg 36"! Therein lies the problem: Apparently, someone set out to make ONE movie...and ended up making a completely DIFFERENT one! This bizarre Paris/Faubourg dichotomy plagues the movie throughout, but particularly during the last half!

Paris did, however, get off to a relatively good start...Showing a lot of promise, in a number of different areas: The interaction between lead characters seemed brisk and focused; the sets had a very authentic mid-30's Paris look and feel; Music that had just the right mix of melancholy, nostalgia and pre-war glibness and sung with just the right inflection and ring; plus, different engaging back stories.

...But it all starts sputtering about half way through. Paris spins out of control and becomes a total mess. Absolutely nothing works! I can't imagine what was going though Writer/Director Christophe Barratier's mind, as he pressed on with this project! As "Paris" progresses, the characters' actions became constantly more erratic, unpredictable and demonstrate a continually escalating degree of incongruity with the personality and motives of each character. Protagonists capriciously waltzed in and out of the movie, with little or no explanation or raison d'etre.

Because of this, the last half of "Paris" takes on a deus ex machina tainted storyline much more akin to a fairy tale or the romantic daydreams of a 13 year-old Parisian girl. Maybe Paris would have been much easier to follow in the original French. The sub-titles are shamelessly below par. Only about 50% of the dialog actually appears on screen! Thusly, you end up missing HALF of the film! First Half = 8*, Last Half = 2*...OVERALL: 5*....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA?!?!?

Any comments, questions or observations, in English or Español, are most welcome!

KissEnglishPasto@Yahoo.com

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